Bible Strands
Jeremiah 13:27
Your adulteries and lustful neighings, your shameless prostitution on the hills and in the fields—I have seen your detestable acts. Woe to you, O Jerusalem! How long will you remain unclean?”
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The Lord speaks through Jeremiah to Jerusalem, immediately following the declaration of exposed shame in the preceding verse.
The words — The text foregrounds נִֽאֻפַּיִךְ (ni.'u.Fa.yi/kh), meaning "your adulteries," and זְנוּתֵךְ (ze.nu.Te/kh), meaning "your prostitution," to catalog covenant betrayal enacted on hills and fields.
The thread — This pattern of worship on elevated ground appears in Isaiah 65:7 and Ezekiel 6:13, while Ezekiel 24:13 parallels the declared refusal to be purified from defilement.
Why it lands — The passage forces recognition of documented sin and confronts the reader with the duration of tolerated uncleanness before divine intervention.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
I have seen thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and thine abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! wilt thou not be made clean? when shall it once be?
Cross-references
- Isaiah 65:7 both for your iniquities and for those of your fathers,” says the LORD. “Because they burned incense on the mountains and scorned Me on the hills, I will measure into their laps full payment for their former deeds.”
- Ezekiel 6:13 Then you will know that I am the LORD, when their slain lie among their idols around their altars, on every high hill, on all the mountaintops, and under every green tree and leafy oak—the places where they offered fragrant incense to all their idols.
- Ezekiel 24:13 Because of the indecency of your uncleanness I tried to cleanse you, but you would not be purified from your filthiness. You will not be pure again until My wrath against you has subsided.
- Hosea 8:5 He has rejected your calf, O Samaria. My anger burns against them. How long will they be incapable of innocence?
- Proverbs 1:22 “How long, O simple ones, will you love your simple ways? How long will scoffers delight in their scorn and fools hate knowledge?
- Jeremiah 2:20 “For long ago you broke your yoke and tore off your chains, saying, ‘I will not serve!’ Indeed, on every high hill and under every green tree you lay down as a prostitute.
- Jeremiah 5:7 “Why should I forgive you? Your children have forsaken Me and sworn by gods that are not gods. I satisfied their needs, yet they committed adultery and assembled at the houses of prostitutes.
- Ezekiel 36:37 This is what the Lord GOD says: Once again I will hear the plea of the house of Israel and do for them this: I will multiply their people like a flock.
- Hosea 4:2 Cursing and lying, murder and stealing, and adultery are rampant; one act of bloodshed follows another.
- 2 Corinthians 7:1 Therefore, beloved, since we have these promises, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that defiles body and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.